Twenty years ago, Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain published Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, a scabby inside-look at the wildly fun, incredibly seedy and at times terrifying underbelly of the 1970s New York City punk scene.
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IF YOU’VE READ it, you probably remember exactly where you were when you first encountered Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain’s Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk. I first came across the book as a 16-year-old kid in a small town in southwestern Colorado. I’d recently discovered punk, and went about putting safety pins in my clothes and calling myself a punk, but for all I knew, punk rock began and ended with the Sex Pistols. When I found Please Kill Me on the shelf of the local bookstore, I bought it without question, expecting mohawks and mosh pits. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
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PKM 20th in the NME!! - -
"Please Kill Me, the oral history of punk written by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, was published 20 years ago this year. It's credited as the book that popularised the oral history format, but, more than that, it's an essential read for anyone with even the slightest interest in the movement. "...

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PleaseKillMe.com is the home of Please Kill Me: the Uncensored Oral History of Punk, and other books & projects by bestselling authors Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain. The site encompasses music, art, culture, fashion, poetry and movies - from the 60s through today. THIS IS WHAT'S COOL!

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INTERVIEW REQUEST – TEENAGE RUNAWAYS ’65-68

Legs McNeil & Gillian McCain would like to interview you if you were a teenage runaway in the United States between the years 1965 to 1968 for their new book, “sixty-nine.” Please email Legs at legsmcn@aol.com. Thank you, Legs & Gillian

PKM TV: JOHN LYDON WITH GILLIAN McCAIN TALKING SID VICIOUS AND DAVID BOWIE

Video of the Week

Dear Nobody

Co-edited by Gillian McCain and Legs McNeil, the authors of Please Kill Me, this book is an incredible and moving read.Learn More about Dear Nobody…

POLY STYRENE REMEMBERED

Marianne Joan Elliott-Said (1957-2011), aka Poly Styrene, was a punk pioneer in ways that are only now being fully appreciated. As the leader of X-Ray Spex, hers was one of the few “black” faces and voices on the scene. Her daughter, Celeste Bell, has just published Day-Glo: The Poly Styrene Story and is at work on a documentary about her mother’s life. She talks to Amy Haben about the UK punk scene and her mother’s role in it.
Read more!

LEGS & GILLIAN INTERVIEWED ON WPKN

David Hershkovits interviews Danny Fields

Recent Comments

John Battles on THE PANDORAS: A LOOK BACK, A LOOK AHEADHas no one replied to this ? It was interesting to find out more about how the band formed , and the events that followed , leading up to their reunion , a few years ago. I'd never heard anything about that , beyond a couple of gigs. I thought

Paul Skinupski on OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD: CHUCK WEINThat was funnier than anything Aristophanes could come up with. I would pay dearly to find out what Bob Mitchum made of Chuck and his tap dancing chums. Bob was cooler than a polar bear’s khyber and didn’t suffer fools.

Pamela on BAND AIDES: SABLE STARR AND LORI MADDOX!Well said exactly! BINGO!! We get the excitement and freelancing of the era...but you are spot on on todays..challenges and times have changed as a consequence there are many...things now today that have to be taken seriously...if you wanna survive...I enjoyed my childhood back then too...but time to get with